Domestic Policy Dimensions and European Union Negotiations: Voting Rules in the Council
Paper presented at the 5th ECPR Pan-European Conference on EU Politics. Porto, Portugal. June 24-26, 2010
Description: This paper explores what preferences governments held in the negotiation process on the European Constitution regarding European Union (EU) institutional provisions and decision rules. Applying logistic regression and ordered probit techniques to the data collection 'Domestic Structures and European Integration' (DOSEI), and complemented by graphical and descriptive explorations, the paper reveals cleavages between governments’ positions that can be discerned in the negotiation process on the European Constitution. Regarding decision rules to be used in the Council, member state preferences clearly differ according to the length of EU states' membership, with older members, in general, favoring a low decision threshold for the Council. Similarly, older EU states were stronger supporters of the application of qualified majority voting (QMV) than were newer EU member states. In addition to this, our analysis reveals that smaller EU states and those facing Euroskeptic domestic publics were more supportive of a low decision threshold in the Council of the EU.
Madeleine O. Hosli, Department of Political Science, Leiden University and U-M Netherlands Visiting Professor, Fall 2010.
Publication date: 2010
Description: Lecture given for the "Conversations on Europe" series. The eastward enlargement of the European Union and the opening of accession negotiations with Turkey have renewed the debate on Europe's borders once again. Where does Europe begin and where does it end?
Publication Date: October 8, 2009
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Eventful Protest, Global Conflicts
Description: Although social movement studies have traditionally stressed conflict as a dynamic element in our societies, since the 1980s, research in democratic society has presented an image of an institutionalization of social movements. Since 1999, with the protest in Seattle against the WTO Millennium Round, this image has been however challenged by a new cycle of protest focusing on 'alternative globalization' and global justice. Beyond describing some forms of action that (through counter-summits and social forums) emerged in this cycle of protest, the article addresses the more general issue of conflict nowadays by considering the emergent character of protest itself. In social movement studies, protest has in fact been mainly considered as a 'dependent variable', and explained on the basis of political opportunities and organizational resources. The author suggests here a different approach, by looking at protests as eventful, in the sense of having relevant cognitive, affective and relational transformative impacts on the very movements that carry them out. Some forms of action or specific campaigns have a particularly high degree of'eventfulness'. Through protest events,new tactics are experimented with, signals about the possibility of collective action are sent, feelings of solidarity are created, organizational networks are consolidated, and sometimes public outrage at repression is developed. Data from interviews, surveys, focus groups and discourse analysis are used in order to reflect upon the mechanisms that make protest eventful. More in general, the article suggests that the contemporary sociological reflection on conflicts as producers of social capital, collective identity and knowledge, could be useful to balance the negative vision of conflicts as being disruptive of social relations, an analysis that can emerge from an exclusive focus on the most extreme forms of political violence. Key words:European social forums; eventful protest; global justice movement;protest; social movements.
Publication Date: 2009
Publication Date: 2009
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From Revolution to Reintegration: Romania's Return to Europe
Description: Lecture given as part of the "Conversations on Europe" lecture series. The soundly based questions I intent to state are the following: why was a revolution necessary to overthrow the communist dictatorship? What did the 1989 revolution mean for the Romanian society? To what degree have the political changes of December 1989 brought about the Romania's democratization and the adapting of the state to the demands of Western Europe and the USA? How does one explain Romania's being accepted as a fully fledged member of NATO and the European Union? What are Romanian citizens' difficulties during the process of European integration and how are those explained?
Publication Date: 2008
Europe: Heir to the Ages or Pregnant Widow
Description: Lecture given as part of the "EUC Annual Distinguished Lecture on Europe" series. "'The death of the contemporary forms of social order ought to gladden rather than trouble the soul. But what is frightening is that the departing world leaves behind it not an heir, but a pregnant widow. Between the death of one and the birth of the other, much water will flow by, a long night of chaos and desolation will pass'. These were the words of Alexander Herzen, the Russian democratic exile, written shortly after the failure of the 1848 revolutions in Europe. Herzen understood the revolutions’ message to be that the old empires of the Holy Alliance were doomed — although he could not know that their final doom would not come for more than seventy years. Although the empires had reasserted control, the real victors of 1848, he thought, had been the European bourgeoisie and their values which Herzen despised as narrow, repressive and selfish. But he was certain that the middle-class victory was doomed too, and that the bourgeois order would itself collapse as the peoples of Europe, the urban and rural masses, rose and created their own unimaginable forms of freedom. Like many things Herzen said and wrote, this magnificent prophecy seems to say more about Russia itself than about western Europe. Many of you will remember his bitter comparison, during his London exile, between the traditions of Polish and Russian émigré revolutionaries. The Poles, he said, could look back to countless holy relics; the Russians had only empty cradles. Some Russian intellectuals, after about 1860, might feel that the Tsarist regime was dead on its feet and that dark forces were slowly gathering to sweep it away. But was the second half of the 19th century really 'a long night of desolation and chaos’ in France, Britain or Germany? We think of it as the supreme historical moment of European self-confidence; the maximum expansion of colonial empires, the decades of breakneck industrialisation and urbanisation as Germany, France and Italy caught up with British pre-eminence, the period of the first effective globalisation though trade and through intercontinental transport and communications, the emergence of modern cities with their blaze of middle-class wealth and their enormous proletarianised workforces. Nevertheless, when I read that prophecy I cannot help thinking about Europe - the big Europe — of today. For 1848, we can read 1989, or 1991 — the collapse of external and then internal Soviet Communism, and the end of the 50-year Cold War which had at once divided Europe and frozen it into a sort of unnatural stability."
Publication Date: 2008
Description: Lecture given as part of the "Conversations on Europe" lecture series. "Two weeks ago, in his lecture in this series on Europe, Neal Ascherson asked two intriguing questions: 'Where is Europe?', and 'When is Europe'. Intriguing because it turned out that these seemingly simply questions are very hard to answer. Today I want to add a third question, as simple as the other two and as difficult to answer. This question is: What is Europe? In a sense, we may regard this third question as the primordial one, as we can start our search for Europe in time and space only when we at least have a slight idea of what we are actually looking for. So the question I want to address this afternoon is: what is it that makes Europe European? And as the title of my talk already indicates, the answer I will defend today is that Europe first and foremost is a tragic continent."
Publication Date: 2008
The Role of Greece in the Discourse of Modernity
Description: Lecture given as part of the "Conversations on Europe" lecture series. 'There is something on earth with one voice that is two-footed and four-footed and three-footed. Alone among however many creatures there are on land and on sky and on sea, it changes its nature. But when it proceeds, supported by the most feet, then the swiftness of its limbs is weakest.'(i) The answer is, of course, "Man," at least as Oedipus answers it. And so began, in Western culture's fiction of origin, the history of man.(ii) Oedipus' answer is "the only ideal and the only idea of man's possibilities," Henri Lefebvre tells us in Introduction to Modernity in which he attempts to think the modern by transplanting the myth of Oedipus.(iii) The Sphinx's riddle also begins my interrogation of the role of Greece in the discourse of modernity. But, unlike Oedipus, I am not interested in its solution, or, in maintaining the solution that has been accepted as his. Rather, following Walter Benjamin's advice in "Riddle and Mystery," I want to explore the riddle's "precondition."(iv) For, as Benjamim explains, "the key to the riddle is not only its solution… but also its intention...its foundation and the 'resolution' of the intent to puzzle that is concealed in it."(v) "Riddles," Benjamin explains, "appear where there is an emphatic intention to elevate an artifact or an event that seems to contain nothing at all, or nothing out of the ordinary, to the plane of symbolic significance." (vi) And, he continues: "Since mystery dwells at the heart of symbol, an attempt will be made to uncover a 'mysterious' side to this artifact or event." The mystery, however, is not inherent in the object but is found in the work of the subject that produces the riddle through its solution.(vii)"
Publication Date: 2008
The Unintended Consequences of European Power
Description: *Why does Europe favour norms as its mode of influence? *Why has its normative influence become global? *What are the main areas for externalizing European norms? These are three questions that this paper will attempt to answer.
Publication Date: 2008
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Description: This investigation assumes that discrimination plays a vital role in shaping inter-ethnic relations and explores discrimination against Muslims in Europe. The different experiences and perceptions of discrimination are related to the different histories of immigration in European countries, the different political arrangements for Muslims in Europe, the participation in structure and culture of the receiving societies, and — especially since the attacks on September 11 , 2001 in the US — th the perception of Muslims in European cities. Considering the efforts by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) as a top-down method, the complementary approach is to examine the victim’s perspective in a bottom-up method and study the perceptions of those who suffer discrimination. The sample for this pilot study consists of Turkish Muslims from Berlin (n=225), Bangladeshi Muslims from London (n=135) and Moroccan Muslims from Madrid (n=203) who were interviewed between July and December, 2004. The results indicate that Turkish and Moroccan Muslims comparatively often said that they belong to a minority that is discriminated against. Bangladeshi Muslims regarded themselves significantly less often discriminated against, though a more detailed analysis reveals that significant numbers of younger Bangladeshi Muslims often perceived themselves as belonging to a minority that is subject to discrimination. In addition, the study examines factors that lead to an increase in perceived discrimination. Results from a logistic regression analysis indicate that everyday experiences such as being stopped by the police, verbal attacks, or disrespectful treatment in public particularly increase the likelihood to say that one belongs to a minority that is discriminated against.
Publication Date: 2007
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One for Some or One for All? Taylor Rules and the Inter-Regional Unemployment Dispersion Puzzle
Description: We document a robust and surprising empirical phenomenon: both the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank appear to set interest rates partly in response to regional disparities in unemployment rates. This result is exceedingly robust, even after controlling for a wide variety of factors, including the central bank's information set and a battery of explanatory variables. Furthermore, including measures of inter-regional unemployment dispersion in Taylor rule estimates also helps improve the identification of the central banks' responses to inflation and unemployment rates. We propose a variety of statistical and theoretical possibilities to account for this puzzling empirical result, but find that none is consistent with our findings.
Publication Date: 2007
Enlightenment, Emancipation, and National Identity: Koraes and the Ancients
Description: Lecture given as part of the "Conversations on Europe" lecture series. Attempting to demonstrate, towards the end of the seventeenth century, that the enslaved descendants of the original possessors of a country "retain a Right to the Possession of their Ancestors", John Locke wondered, "Who doubts but the Grecian Christians descendants of the ancient possessors of that Country may justly cast off the Turkish yoke which they have so long groaned under when ever they have a power to do it?" Many, in fact, did. In his essay "Of National Characters", published in 1748, David Hume expressed a widely held view when he remarked, "The ingenuity, industry, and activity of the ancient GREEKS have nothing in common with the stupidity and indolence of the present inhabitants of those regions". A Greek contemporary of Hume's might well take offense to his description, and an impartial listener would not be entirely mistaken in considering his attitude towards modern Greece to be divergent from Locke's. And yet, no less illustrious a modern Greek than Adamantios Koraes, born on April 27th of the year in which Hume's essay was published, found the essence of these two positions simultaneously correct and inextricably intertwined. After all, by the middle of the eighteenth century, the Greek world had been under Ottoman domination for some 300 years, and liberation was still far off.
Publication Date: 2007
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With or without you...judging politically in the field of Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
Description: The study of the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) case law regarding the Area of Freedom Security and Justice (AFSJ) is in many ways fascinating. It relates to a new field of EU competence, touches upon all the fundamental issues of European integration and is intertwined with the protection of fundamental rights. From a more technical perspective, it is impregnated with all the institutional drawbacks resulting from the EU's three-pillar structure, as well as with the substantial shortfalls related to the lack of a clear political will for strong harmonisation. Against this background, the ECJ follows a binary logic, which may also appear somehow controversial. On the one hand it shows high respect for specific policy choices enshrined by the member states into pieces of secondary legislation. On the other hand, and more importantly, the ECJ energetically pushes forward its own vision of the AFSJ. This vision is one which is liberated from the strict three-pillar logic of the EU Treaty, where fundamental rights and the rule of law rank high in the agenda.
Publication Date: 2007
Transitional Justice in Post-Conflict Societies of Former Yugoslavia
Description: Lecture given as part of the "Revisiting Yugoslavia's Dissolution" series. A failure to begin to critically review their role in armed conflict and responsibility for the crimes committed in that conflict is common to all states which emerged on the territory of former Yugoslavia.
Publication Date: 2007
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Description: To all appearances higher education in both the EU and the US has turned into a more fashionable topic for politicians and journalists than it was ten years ago1. With some frequency readers of the daily and the weekly press are informed about what is going on in 'the brain business' in the first half of their newspapers and journals — a topic that used to be covered by journalists at the very beginning of their career or by journalists who simply did not understand what the average reader finds interesting. Being a very complex and an utterly unsexy topic (moreover with a complex history), higher education usually just does not capture the publics' eye and imagination.
Publication Date: 2007
Description: Across post-communist Europe, a battle is being waged over the moral content of democracy. This is a battle over whether the religious market should be open or closed, over whether the dominant religious organization should be able to translate its moral convictions into laws binding on all citizens regardless of their religious affiliation, over the proper exercise and limits of freedom of speech, and even over the putative right of a religious body (whether the Catholic or the Orthodox Church) to harness the political apparatus in one or another state for the purpose of obtaining exceptions to EU standards. It is, in short, a battle over whether the dominant social system in post-communist Europe will be liberal democracy or clerical democracy.
Publication Date: 2007
Which Form of Accountable Government for the European Union?
Description: In this contribution the question is asked, and tried to be answered, which form of accountable government the European Union should have in the future. The subject may seem to be of a speculative nature and, indeed, it is. However, complaints are often heard that political decisions are taken, jumping from one crisis situation to another, ending up in a political structure without any consistency. Consequently, it may be desirable to think about how a coherent political structure of the EU may look like. Surely, many will think that this is preposterous now that a constitution for Europe has been rejected. But, is it not exactly when the political decision making process has come to an halt and limiting itself, as it usually does, to taking punctual decisions in order to resolve daily problems, that some long term academic thinking is appropriate? That is what I intend to do herein, dividing my lecture in three parts: first, which proto-type forms of accountable government are available in democratic states, second, which form is preferable from a theoretical point of view, and third, what would be the most appropriate form of accountable government for the EU from a practical viewpoint. The whole exercise is about making the Union's structure more democratic, and the Union's decision making process more legitimate.
Publication Date: 2007
Description: In October 2005, a group of distinguished tax experts from the European Union and the United States, who had never met before, convened at the University of Michigan Law School for a conference on "Comparetive Fiscal Federalism: Comparing the U.S. Supreme Court of Justice Tax Jurispruence."
Publication Date: 2006
The Double Challenge of Globalisation and Regionalisation
Description: Lecture given for the "Conversations on Europe" series (Decembe, 2005). Lecture on regionalisation and globalisation, with an effort to exemplify on the regionalised character of the European Union and also include in the discussion the current situation in Europe as well as the prospects and trends.
Publication Date: 2006
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The EU Essential Facilities Doctrine
Description: The doctrine of essential facilities originates in the US antitrust case law of the Circuit and District Courts, but has never been officially acknowledged by the Supreme Court. It has been further developed and hotly debated by scholars in the US, both from a legal and from an economic viewpoint. In the EU, the essential facilities doctrine was openly introduced by the Commission during the early 1990s, but has received only limited and indirect support by the Court of First Instance (the CFI) and the European Court of Justice (the ECJ). It also indirectly inspired the legislation concerning the deregulation of traditional ‘natural’ monopolies.
Publication Date: 2006
Why the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) is bad for you: A Letter to the EU
Description: The paper intention is to further stimulate the scientific dialogue on the open method of coordination (OMC).
Publication Date: 2006
Who Are the Europeans and Why Does That Matter for Politics?
Description: It is useful to summarize the basic story of the past two chapters. Only about 13% of the Europe's population sees themselves as mostly European. A large fraction of the rest of the population sometimes sees itself as European but mainly has a national identity.
Publication Date: 2006
The Many Faces of the EU: A Guide
Description: The European Union is confusing. It is confusing to Europeans and to American's-and to just about everyone else. It is intrinsically difficult to understand because it is neither a normal state like the us or Canada, not is it a normal international organization like NATO or the OAS or UN. It is fundamentally a regional system of governance. It is not a regional system of "government" however, for the EU does not have a government as we traditionally think of a government. Lecture given as part of the Conversations on Europe series.
Publication Date: 2006
Managing the Global Firm: Appliying the Lessons of a Transatlantic Merger
Description: Lecture on the importance and significance of the economic ties between America and Europe. Lecture given as part of the EUC/WDI Distinguished Lecture on Europe, March 8, 2005. Please see our Multimedia page for the video of this lecture.
Publication Date: 2005
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Haunting Europe: Some Modernist Uses of Hellenism
Description: Lecture given at EUC as part of the "Conversations on Europe" series in February 2005. ABSTRACT: Hellenism is a way of seeing ghosts. Normally associated with the gothic genre, these shadowy visions persist in the writings of modernist writers in a variety of forms, representative of distinctive(and often conflicting) positions on art and cultural politics. The concern with the continuity of European civilization and the ability of the modern artist and intellectual to energize the present by reanimating the past amounts to more than a mere exercise of classical allusion for a learned audience. Through meditations on mythical motifs and staged encounters between ancient ritual and contemporary crises, writers such as Eliot, Pound, Woolf, Joyce, and thinkers such as Freud and Heidegger, conjure the spectre of Hellenism as a familiar and fortifying sight.
Publication Date: 2005
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Beyond George W. Bush, Texas and the Current Administration Policies
Description: Lecture given for the "Conversations on Europe" series(September, 2005): There can be no doubt that the Bush Administration's policies have massively contributed to a hitherto unprecedented deterioration in European-American relations. However, European antipathies towards many things American date back at least to July 5, 1776, if not before. Following a conceptual discussion of anti-Americanism, the paper then turns to an account of these historical dislikes and anchors them particularly among Europe's elites. A discussion of anti-Semitism in relation to anti- Americanism follows in the subsequent section. A summary of an analysis of newspaper articles collected in the decade of the 1990s highlights the widespread nature of anti-American sentiments in Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. Lastly, anti-Americanism's functionality as a useful ingredient in Europe's burgeoning state building process concludes the paper.
Publication Date: 2006
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